North Korean Defector Claims Kim Jong Un Will Use Nuclear Weapons

A defector from the top government echelons of North Korea had a chilling message for the United States, according to NBC News.

In an exclusive interview Monday, former deputy ambassador to the U.K. Thae Yong Ho told NBC that madman dictator Kim Jong Un will deploy nukes at the first sign of any threat, be it a nuclear weapon or a tank. He is “desperate in maintaining his rule by relying on his nuclear weapons and ICBM,” Thae said.

A North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear weapon attached could conceivably reach the U.S. Experts do not believe that North Korea yet has that capability, but clearly the country is working on it.

“If Kim Jong Un has nuclear weapons and ICBMs, he can do anything,” Thae told NBC. “So, I think the world should be ready to deal with this kind of person.”

The world has nervously watched both the acceleration of North Korea’s nuclear program and the increasingly aggressive posture of its young dictator.

In February, North Korea fired four ballistic missiles toward Japan, according to Reuters. They landed in the Sea of Japan close to Japan’s northwest coast.

Kim equates nuclear capability with national security and his personal grip on power. He views the downfall of both Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi and Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who abandoned their weapons of mass destruction programs prior to being overthrown, as a lesson to substantiate his nuclear obsession, Thae said.

China is perhaps in the best position to put the squeeze on Kim Jong Un, yet the country has refused. The Korean peninsula is separated from Japan by the Sea of Japan on the east, but North Korea shares a border with China at the Yalu River.

China sees North Korea as a buffer against Western politics and culture. However, the risk of North Korean aggression anywhere in the region posts a huge threat that China should not underestimate.

First, China is North Korea’s largest trading partner, and destabilization of North Korea would be an economic blow to China. Second, any collapse of North Korea would send presumably hundreds of thousands of refugees into China, as CNBC reported.

Third, and most important, no country — including China — should feel safe from Kim Jong Un, whom Sen. John McCain recently called a “crazy fat kid.”

If China won’t help, the Trump administration has vowed to go it alone. “If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will,” President Donald Trump told the Financial Times.